The APM is the annual meeting for social work educators, students, deans, and directors worldwide, bringing together more than 2,600 individual members. Each year, the APM is the largest gathering of graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education.

As many of you know, California’s attorney general announced last Thursday that the state’s travel ban will now include the state of Texas in response to Texas House Bill 3859. The new law permits workers within the state’s child welfare system to withhold services from groups of people if serving the group violates the worker’s “sincerely held religious belief.” Such a clause is likely to affect LGBTQ and religious minority groups. Not only is this law antithetical to the values and ethics of our profession, but inclusion of the state of Texas on California’s travel ban prohibits California state employees from using taxpayer funds to travel to Texas, therefore prohibiting them from attending and presenting at the APM.

We have been encouraged by member outreach reaffirming that it is critical now, more than ever, to have a strong presence in these communities to communicate our unwavering support for those who are being discriminated against. CSWE, along with its Council on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression, is planning a panel discussion at the APM on Friday, October 20, 2017, comprised of local agency representatives and advocates faced with conducting business in the context of a challenging political environment. The session will be recorded so we can make it available to those unable to attend.

As we mentioned in our April 19 communication, CSWE secures meeting venues 5 years in advance. Conference site selections are made this far in advance with several factors in mind to ensure the best fiscal value for our members. In light of the legislative developments in Texas in the last several months, we explored every possible scenario for moving the 2017 APM to another location. Financially, it was not possible to absorb the level of monetary penalty we would incur in breaking our contract with the hotel. Now that we are faced with the newly enacted travel ban, we are diligently exploring ways to accommodate those who cannot travel to Dallas in October. Several CSWE members have suggested innovative ideas for using technology to overcome this unfortunate obstacle, and we want to assure our members that CSWE will do everything in its power to find a solution. For those directly affected by the California travel ban, you may request an APM registration refund. Those requests can be submitted to apm@cswe.org.

We welcome your suggestions on how we might come together on behalf of our colleagues and the communities we serve to demonstrate our dissatisfaction with laws that promote discrimination and how we can make APM programming available to those unable to join us in Dallas.

Darla Spence Coffey Barbara W. Shank

A note from CSWE President & CEO and CSWE Board of Directors Chair:

April 19, 2017
Dear Colleagues,

As you probably know, the 2017 CSWE Annual Program Meeting (APM) is scheduled to be held October 19–22 in Dallas, Texas. Texas Senate Bill 6 (“Relating to regulations and policies for entering or using a bathroom or changing facility”) has been top of mind at CSWE. We are closely monitoring the progress of this proposed legislation that directly affects our members and those whom we serve. The tensions between the Texas House and Senate have been well-documented in the news, and the outcome is far from certain at this point.

As for APM, site selection is done at least 5 years in advance to accommodate the size and scope of our conference. As we became aware of the proposed legislation in Texas, our first action was to explore the possibility of moving the conference—and discovered that such a change would come at an exorbitant cost. To address similar potential conflicts in the future, the CSWE Board of Directors asked the Council on Conferences and Faculty Development, a council of the Commission on Membership and Professional Development, to make recommendations for the development of a Socially Responsible Conference Planning policy. We are grateful to the members of these two groups for their wise counsel on the issues, and particularly for the leadership of Dr. Maureen Rubin and Dr. Cheryl Parks. The CSWE Board received those recommendations on March 24, 2017, and they are currently under review.

As for the Dallas APM, we join you in advocating for inclusive and nondiscriminatory polices and will continue to monitor the situation. We have also created space at the conference to feature a panel of local agency representatives and advocates faced with conducting business in the context of a challenging political environment. The session is scheduled for Friday, October 20, 2017, 4:00 pm–5:00 pm. It will be held in a general session room and will be recorded, so that we can make it available after the conference to our members. We thank the members of the Council on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression for partnering with us on this presentation. Stay tuned for more details.